Posted by
Patrick Henry on Saturday, May 09, 2009 4:18:29 PM
It was entertaining, yesterday, to hear Barack Obama, President of the United States,
explain to his adoring media sycophants how his mortgage bailouts in reality amount
to a tax cut. You have to hand it to the man. In a profession where figures seldom
lie but liars never cease to figure he has absolutely mastered the Tao of weasel words.
There is, of course, the small matter that (a) the mortgage bailouts will only be
enjoyed by a small fraction of the American people, and (b) while those who refinance
at lower rates will both lower their payments and save money over the life of their
loans, so, too, will they lose the tax deductions they would have had at the higher
interest rate. One would think that even somebody as stupid as Keith Olbermann
would figure that out in a flash. Yet no one called Obama's bluff.
It is an emerging custom in Washington to spin such insignificances and fabrications
into larger than life claims that do not hold up under close scrutiny. It is equally
vogue to call things the very opposite of what they actually are, in order to cloak
their true meaning and intent. Take, for example, the "Employee Freedom of Choice
Act" now making its way through the legislature. It is a bill designed by Democrats
to pay their union dues in return for the massive political support of organized
labor during the elecctions. It deprives employees in non-union shops from casting
a secret ballot on whether to unionize, and allows union organizers to pressure and
arm-twist employees privately to sign a card that would waive their right to such an
election. Sometimes called the "card check bill," it would make the unions, whose
membership has sunk to an all-time low and who have already ruined the American
automobile industry, more easily able to force employees and their employers to
accept a union shop. If the bill was called what it actually is, the title would be
something like "the employee secret ballot deprivation act." or the "union open
season on employees act." Weasel words.
Another prime example is Obama's cap-and-trade energy tax, which will drive
every American's energy bill through the roof, increase consumer cost for everything
requiring energy to produce (which is almost everyyhing), force businesses into
expensive retrofitting, the costs of which will be passed along to customers,
and set a cap on energy businesses can use which can then, under certain
circumstances be bought, sold, traded, or even set aside for favored businesses
through deals with the government brokered by legislators. Do you know how
to spell C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N? This is a massive fee imposed upon businesses
and passed on to consumers that is levied by government. No matter how loudly
Democrats shout that it is not a tax, it clearly meets the defininiton of a tax. It
is, in fact, Barack Obama's boondoggle energy tax. The only reason he and his
allies in congress won't come right out and call it that is because they don't want
to be caught with their hands up to the elbows in the cookie jar -- raising taxes --
AGAIN.
We have all heard Obama argue that under his frog-strangling budget proposal
the national deficit will be cut in half by the end of his first term. What he NECER
mentions is that he is the one creating this monster deficit in the first place through
unprecedented reckless spending, or that over ten years the multi-trillion dollar
deficit being created will be unsustainable. It is hardly commendable when you
promise to clean up half a big mess that you yourself have made. Either the man is
incredibly dense, or he thinks the rest of us are.
It is indeed sad that we have reached a station where we must accept the fact
that our elected leaders blatantly and intentionally lie to us on a daily basis, and
that they routinely cloak programs and legislation in poltical code that almost
invariably mean the opposite of what it says. Saddest of all is the fact that,
according to the polls, most Americans are not yet willing to look past the
fake presidential seal, the phony Greek temple, the Hollywood/Rock Star
hype, the torrent of weasel words and realized that they have been expertly
conned by a quintessential flim-flam artist whose thirst to spend taxpayer money
is exceeded only by the demands of his bloated ego. Maybe when electric bills
double and more promises are broken, the awakening will occur. Maybe,
somewhere along that road, we can recapture the art of meaning what we say,
and saying what we really men.